“Please, just kill me.”

The wooden desk was always empty near his bedside. He never put water or food on that side of her bed. Sun would shine in from the nearby window and illuminate dust, sun panes, and shadows, but there was never any object. A plant would probably do well there, Nurse Bianchi had thought more than once. That was why she knew that the letter wasn’t there before, and was there now.

Marcus had been breathing the day before. He was in the last stage of his cancer, but maintained a positive attitude throughout. On the outside, that is. Nurse Bianchi had seen both opposites: people angry at the cancer, cursing it as if it were a person. And people thanking it for teaching them a lesson to appreciate life more. Marcus was somewhere in between. Not grateful, but not hopeless, either. That is, until last night. She heard the buzzer and sensed a rattle in his room as she approached. He never rang.

His face was pale when she got there. “What can I do?” She asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “I hit the buzzer on accident. I apologize for disrupting you.”

“It’s my job, not a bother,” she said, eyeing his crumpled bedclothes. He had been moving around.

“Were you using the restroom just now?”

“No, only . . . I mean, yes, yes I was.”

She understood. He had been moving somewhere, some way he wasn’t supposed to be. She didn’t want to push, especially so late.

“Goodnight, Marcus,” she said, and closed his door.

Next morning, he was breathing but unresponsive. They checked his papers and files and found that he had no next of kin to contact to determine next steps. Nurse Bianchi hadn’t seen any visitors since he arrived at the hospital four years ago. At first, he was in and out, but for the last year he had been steadily in the room she was in now. She called in the doctor, who examined Marcus and shook his head. “We’ll have to consider some options,” he said without an explanation. He left the room.

That was when she found the note. Placed on the desk, sun shining down on it as if by some divine being. She picked it up and read the four words: “Please, just kill me.”

Her heart dropped to her feet as she looked back at Marcus. His eye lids were not fluttering. The steady beeping of the machine at his side was the only indication that he was alive at all. A life? For some. Not for her to decide…

But she couldn’t ignore the note. He deserved some peace. Without any more thinking, she pulled the plug and listened as the beeping slowly intensified and then died out. The cord was still in her hand when the doctor, with other nurses, rushed back in. Marcus’ letter had fallen to the ground.